Mind & body, in brief

Canada's government said on Wednesday that people whose only illness is a mental illness will stay shut out of assisted dying, with no end date. [1][2]

The exclusion was due to end in March 2027. A new law will be brought in the coming weeks to keep it in place instead. [2]

Justice minister Sean Fraser said doctors disagree on whether some mental illnesses are irremediable, which means beyond help from any treatment, and that this gave him real cause for concern. [2]

He also said there was no perfect consensus on the question, and called his government's choice the correct approach for now. [1]

Assisted dying, called MAID in Canada, became legal in 2016 for people near death, and in 2021 for people with incurable physical conditions who were not. [2][1]

In 2024 it made up about 5% of all deaths in Canada, and about 96 in every 100 of those people were expected to die soon, mostly of cancer. [3]

A joint committee of Canada's parliament recommended the indefinite exclusion in June, and senators who disagreed called its process biased. [3][9]

Sonu Gaind, a University of Toronto psychiatrist, told the committee that assessors cannot predict when a mental illness will not improve. [3]

A review presented at a psychiatry meeting found no evidence that doctors can reliably predict this for one patient. [5]

Claire Brosseau, 49, has bipolar disorder and PTSD, has tried treatments for 30 years, and is challenging the exclusion in court. [3][4][9]

The same law will let people with a worsening incurable illness such as Alzheimer's ask for assisted dying in advance, but each province decides, and Alberta has said no. [1][2]

In a poll by the firm Angus Reid, 77% of Canadians supported MAID, but only 42% supported it for people whose only condition is a mental illness. [3]

Why it matters. Watch the text of the new law in the coming weeks, and the court case led by Dying With Dignity Canada, which could still overturn the exclusion. [1][2]

Researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that a gene therapy partly restored sight in 10 blind people. [11] All had advanced retinitis pigmentosa, inherited diseases in which the eye's light-sensing cells stop working, which affect over 1.5 million people. [11] One injection gives surviving nerve cells in the retina a light-sensitive protein, and goggles turn the scene into pulses of light those cells can sense. [11] Six of the ten sensed light clearly better, and some could find a door or walk along a line. [11]

Why it matters. It is the first larger human trial of optogenetics, the method behind this year's medicine Nobel, and it works whatever gene caused the blindness. [11] Patients cannot yet see faces, and the team hopes for sharper sight in five to ten years. [11]

Surgeons at NHS Lothian in Edinburgh put frozen testicular tissue back into a 19-year-old, the first such operation in the UK and the second reported worldwide. [12] The tissue was taken three years ago, before chemotherapy for a serious blood disorder, and afterwards tests found no sperm. [12] It holds stem cells that make sperm from puberty on. [12] Older teenagers can freeze sperm, but boys before puberty have none to freeze. [12] In July a man was reported making sperm again from tissue frozen 16 years before. [13]

Why it matters. Doctors should know within months whether the operation worked. [12] More than 1,200 patients in the UK and 3,100 worldwide have tissue stored and waiting. [12]

Britain rationed sugar after the Second World War, and young children were meant to have little or none added. [14] Rationing ended in September 1953, and sugar eaten nearly doubled. [15] Researchers compared people conceived just before and just after, using UK Biobank health records. [15] Those rationed through their first 1,000 days had about 35% less type 2 diabetes and 20% less high blood pressure. [15] Later studies found 14% less heart failure and biological ages about a year younger. [17][16]

Why it matters. A government decision, not each family, set who ate less sugar, a comparison researchers could never set up on purpose. [14] Researcher Tadeja Gracner said they can show the protection but not yet how it works. [14]

A study in Nature found that a common gut bacterium, Bacteroides uniformis, makes a molecule that lowers cholesterol. [18] Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in China saw that people with heart disease often carried less of it. [18] In mice with clogged arteries, live bacteria shrank the fatty build-up in the main arteries by about a third. [18] The molecule, pentadecanoic acid, blocks the same liver enzyme that statins, common cholesterol pills, block. [18] In over 200 people, those with high cholesterol had less of it. [18]

Why it matters. Statins alone do not bring cholesterol down far enough in nearly half of people with advanced heart disease. [18] The human data is a link, not a trial, so whether the bacterium helps people is still open. [18]

A study in Nature compared the gut bacteria of the Hadza, hunter-gatherers in northern Tanzania, and the Tsimane, who forage and fish in the Bolivian Amazon. [19] Though some 7,000 miles apart, they share about 1,200 bacterial species, a near-90% overlap. [19] Stanford researchers dated the shared strains to a common ancestor about 17,000 years ago. [19] That fits people carrying the bacteria out of Africa and across the old land bridge from Russia to Alaska. [19] City dwellers nearby had very different gut bacteria. [19]

Why it matters. Senior author Justin Sonnenburg said losing such old companions may matter for the body. [19] Andrew Moeller of Princeton said city guts may instead suit city life, and nobody yet knows which is right. [19]

Kenya has put 10 people in quarantine and is tracing 57 contacts of a man who died of Ebola in Nairobi on Monday. [21][20] He was Kenya's first case: a Kenyan who had lived in Congo for years and fell ill about a month earlier. [22] He went from Buta to Kisangani and Beni, then through Uganda to Nairobi, without being stopped. [20] A health official said medicines may have hidden his symptoms. [20] Congo's outbreak has killed more than 4,000 people this year. [20]

Why it matters. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, asked why he was not detected, and said not every neighbour is as ready as Kenya. [20] Kenya's health minister Aden Duale called it an incident, not an outbreak. [21]

Australian pharmacies stocking the abortion pill MS-2 Step rose from 2,228 to 4,107 after rules were eased, a study in JAMA Network Open found. [23] In 2023 the medicines regulator let any family doctor prescribe it, and pharmacists no longer had to register to hand it out. [23] Postcodes with a stocking pharmacy rose from 915 to 1,292. [23] In remote areas the share of pharmacies stocking it rose from 12.5% to 22%. [23] The pill can be used up to 63 days into a pregnancy. [23]

Why it matters. Lead author Kristina Edvardsson of La Trobe University said women can now get it closer to home, with less travel. [23] Another researcher said rural access still needs work. [23]

Visits by people born outside the US to three Los Angeles emergency rooms dropped sharply after US immigration enforcement increased last year, a study in JAMA Network Open found. [24] Over the same time, hospital admissions in that group rose. [24] The authors said heavier enforcement may lead immigrant patients to avoid urgent care. [24] A Minneapolis children's doctor had told STAT in February of a huge lapse in care. [24]

Why it matters. The authors warned of harm to the patients' health and of costs for the hospitals that treat them. [24] The study puts numbers on what doctors had been describing for months. [24]

Christa Pike, the Tennessee prisoner who survived two doses of the execution drug pentobarbital on 30 September, woke up in a Nashville hospital this week. [25] Her lawyer Randy Spivey said that on Monday night they understood she was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day. [25] On Tuesday she woke and began talking. [25] She cannot move her arms, which are badly swollen, and nobody knows what use she will regain. [26]

Why it matters. She is the only person known to have survived lethal injection drugs. [26] A judge ordered Tennessee to keep all evidence, and her lawyers want her sentence changed to life in prison. [26]

Howard Wolinsky, a medical journalist, wrote in STAT that eight life insurers turned him down for untreated cancer. [27] His prostate cancer was Gleason 6, the lowest grade on the scale doctors use to judge from a microscope how dangerous it is. [27] His doctors advised active surveillance: regular blood tests, biopsies and scans instead of surgery. [27] His cover fell from $600,000 to $100,000 for the same $184 a month. [27] One broker said some insurers may still make men like him wait three to five years. [27]

Why it matters. Doctors watch low-grade prostate cancer because it rarely spreads when blood tests stay stable. [27] A man who follows that advice can still lose most of his life insurance. [27]

The family of Ethan Scott Brown, a 23-year-old geography student, met Scotland's education secretary, Mairi McAllan, on Wednesday. [28] The University of Glasgow had wrongly told him he could not graduate with honours. [28] He took his own life on 13 December 2024, the day he should have graduated. [28] The university's own review found systemic grading errors, and that he had enough marks for a 2:1 degree. [28] It also found staff did not offer support after he raised concerns about his mental health. [28]

Why it matters. The family's solicitor said the university will be held to account, and Scotland's prosecutors are investigating the death. [28] In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be reached free at any time on 116 123. [1]

Los Angeles County has found its first rabid raccoon in more than 50 years. [29] Four people and a dog may have been exposed at a backyard work site in Westlake Village. [29] The raccoon looked ill but was not aggressive. [29] Rabies passes through a bite or scratch and is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. [29] It kills tens of thousands of people a year, mostly in Africa and Asia, while the US records fewer than 10 deaths a year. [29]

Why it matters. The four people are getting follow-up care that includes a series of vaccines. [29] County health officer Muntu Davis said nobody should touch wild animals, even ones that look healthy. [29]

Henri Kagan, 95, of Paris-Sud University, and Kenso Soai, 76, of the Tokyo University of Science, won the Nobel prize in chemistry on Wednesday. [31] Their work is on molecules that come in two mirror-image forms, like a left and a right hand. [31] Lab chemistry normally makes both forms in equal amounts, and they found ways to make just one. [30] Living things use only one form of each amino acid, the building blocks of proteins. [31] More than half of the medicines in use are mirror-image molecules. [31]

Why it matters. The two forms of one drug can behave differently in the body, so the ability to make the right one gives safer, more precise medicines. [31]

Jonathan, an Aldabra giant tortoise on the island of Saint Helena, is at least 194 years old, about a century past his species' usual limit. [32] Researchers read his DNA from cheek cells in a study in Science Advances. [32] He has unusual versions of 287 genes, some involved in repairing DNA. [32] Chemical tags that switch genes on and off usually fall into disorder with age. [32] In 272 of his genes, many linked to mitochondria, the parts of cells that make energy, the tags stayed orderly. [32]

Why it matters. The genes are candidates for how long lives work, said an outside researcher, and may one day help human health. [32] About 5% of the sequence had to be filled in from a younger tortoise. [32]

The Trump administration mailed $500 checks last week to some people who buy health cover on Healthcare.gov, the federal insurance marketplace. [33] They went to people in its 30 states who earn too much for regular subsidies and were hit when the US Congress let extra help expire. [33] Ellen Allen, in West Virginia, paid $1,967 a month for cover this year before turning 65. [33] Checks of $90 will follow for 20 million people on Medicare, the US scheme for over-65s. [33]

Why it matters. The checks come weeks before US midterm elections, with a letter praising the Trump administration's health policy. [33] Kathleen Clark, an ethics law professor, said it reads like electioneering, which US law forbids. [33]

The United Arab Emirates approved caps on sodium, sugar and fat in packaged foods on Tuesday, for local and imported products alike. [35] The limits come in stages, with the final ones by 31 December 2030. [35] Firms that break them face fines of up to about $136,000 or closure for six months. [35] The country has taxed fizzy drinks at 50% and energy drinks at 100% since 2017. [35] Al Ain Farms and Arla have begun changing recipes. [34]

Why it matters. Abu Dhabi health official Ahmed Al Khazraji said the aim is to improve food people already buy, instead of asking each shopper to choose differently. [34] A doctor at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi warned that food meeting the limits is not automatically healthy. [34]

Lenzetto, one of the most widely used hormone treatments for menopause symptoms, will be back in Spanish pharmacies in the second half of November, its maker Gedeon Richter told Euronews. [36] It ran short because demand for menopause hormone treatment in Europe grew far faster than expected. [36] The applicator used to give it could not be made fast enough. [36] The company says the shortage is global and has nothing to do with safety. [36]

Why it matters. A new plant and production line are planned, including in Romania. [36] The company admits supply may still fall short of demand into 2027. [36]

Gaza still has no fully working hospital and no MRI scanner a year after the ceasefire, Physicians for Human Rights Israel said in a report. [37] Intensive care has grown by one bed, from 103 to 104. [37] Dialysis, which cleans the blood when kidneys fail, is offered at 12% of medical sites, down from 17% in October 2025. [37] Gaza's health ministry says at least 1,570 patients, 264 of them children, died waiting to be taken abroad for treatment. [37]

Why it matters. The group blames Israel's limits on medicine, equipment and patients leaving. [37] The WHO counted 128 attacks on medical sites in the ceasefire's first seven months. [37]

Common Sense Media, a US non-profit that rates media for families, labelled ChatGPT for Teens an unacceptable risk. [38] OpenAI launched it in August with parental controls and limits on harmful material. [38] The group found it kept teens talking even in crises: in one test of a user spiralling into psychosis, it offered to keep chatting. [38] OpenAI disputed the testing. [38] It separately reported that teens use ChatGPT under 15 minutes a day on average. [39]

Why it matters. Fewer than 2% of teens use it for over three hours straight, OpenAI said. [39] In August Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims it built Facebook and Instagram to hook children. [39]

Mayo Clinic researchers bred mice carrying different pairs of the APOE gene, the strongest inherited risk for Alzheimer's disease. [40] The APOE4 version increases build-up of amyloid, a sticky protein, while APOE2 protects. [40] Mice with one copy of each had less amyloid and less harmful immune-cell activity than mice with APOE4 paired with the common APOE3. [40] The study appeared in Nature Communications. [40]

Why it matters. People inherit two copies of the gene, and how the two versions act together had been unknown. [40] The result is in mice, so it points human studies somewhere without settling anything. [40]

A rapid test for dengue, a virus spread by mosquitoes, missed 8 of 72 confirmed cases in Peruvian adults, a study in Scientific Reports found. [41] Researchers checked the OnSite NS1 test against PCR, the slower lab test that reads the virus's genes, on 140 stored blood samples. [41] It caught 89% of real cases and raised no false alarms. [41] Most samples were taken three to five days after symptoms began, when the test works best. [41]

Why it matters. A clinic can trust a positive result. [41] A negative result in someone who looks ill still needs a second test, the authors said. [41]

A study in Scientific Reports interviewed 119 male motorcycle delivery riders in Turkey about stress and road rage. [42] The riders work in constant traffic under time pressure. [42] Researchers sorted them into four types, labelled risky, moderate, passive and prosocial, which differed in how they rode and in signs of distress. [42] The riders' own accounts tied road rage to pressure from the job as well as to riding habits. [42]

Why it matters. The authors conclude that road rage among delivery riders comes partly from working conditions, not only from the rider. [42]

Yannick, 13, and Brecken, 12, are friends who both have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare, fatal disease that wastes muscle. [24] Brecken gets a new drug from the company Avidity that makes the cell skip the faulty part of the gene. [24] Each such drug must match a patient's exact mutation, and none yet matches Yannick's. [24] This summer Avidity delayed a trial of a drug that would. [24]

Why it matters. As Brecken grows, Yannick is losing function, STAT reported. [24] Some parents are now trying to act on their own. [24]